Candy Mulder...The Vampire Slayer?
by Cassandra Lange
Summary: An X-Files/Buffy the Vampire the Slayer Crossover with my own pizzazz. Mulder and Scully have weird lives anyway - why can't their daughter be the slayer?
1. Default Chapter

  
  
Candy Mulder....The Vampire Slayer? (1/4)  
  
"I'm so nervous, I totally understand the phrase butterflies in my stomach."  
"Well, I'm so nervous I could just vomit."  
"Gross! A zit!"  
"Does that look like a stretch mark to you?"  
I listened to the voices around me, some high-pitched with anxiety, others giddy with expectancy. A flurry of teased hair and multicolored pom-poms, teenaged girls with layers of glittery makeup and floral perfumes, supportive friends and significant others surrounded me. As I remembered it, cheerleader tryouts hadn't been quite so hectic back in D.C. There had been sufficiently less hair and makeup and shrieking. Or maybe because I had been part of it all, the wedding-cake hair, the shiny blush, the giggling.   
But here in Sunnydale, California, I was on alien turf. I didn't know anyone's name, and no one knew, or cared to know mine. I was alone. Solitary. I wasn't part of any group, any clique, any comfortable quartet or trio or even a pair. I stretched my legs out and cursed my parents again under my breath.  
It was all their fault, of course. *They* decided to move right before my junior year. *They* decided they needed a change, so they transplanted me out of the organism I called my life, and dumped me here. *They* decided Sunnydale was a more productive place to grow up. Sunny-HELL is more like it. Doesn't the sun ever stop shining?  
"Candy Mulder." A woman with a pen tucked behind her ear and a clipboard in hand scanned the sea of hopeful faces. "Mulder. Candy."  
I waved a purple pom-pom in the air. As I jumped up, a guy in the back called out, "Go girl!"  
I turned to glare, but I didn't see anyone who seemed likely. "Ms. Mulder," the woman said, coughing.  
"Right," I responded. I jogged to the middle of the space that had been cleared for the tryouts. I stood with my feet together and gritted my teeth. "Ready."  
I did the cheer from my old school and hoped for the best. A few girls clapped half-heartedly, but I was busy studying the woman's face. "Nice," was all she said. "Next."  
I trodded crestfallen to the locker room. It wasn't that I was overly disappointed at not making the cheerleading squad. It was just that there wasn't much happening in Sunnydale, so I was finding it hard to make friends. I had been hoping that joining the squad would be a first step. Now it seemed like I had to take my first step somewhere else.  
A locker slammed behind me. "Nice cheer," someone said.  
"Thanks," I answered. I opened a locker and peeked at the speaker in the mirror fastened to the door. She was a curvy blonde with legs that went on forever. She sported a tiny beauty mark on the right side of her chin - or rather, the left, if I was looking in the mirror. Standing next to her, medium height, rust-colored hair and gray eyes, I felt like a munchkin. No wonder I didn't make the squad.  
"Your name's Candy?" she continued. She had a Valley Girl-type intonation.  
I turned, nodding. I placed my foot on the bench that bisected the aisle formed by the row of lockers. "I'm Barbie," she informed me as I unlaced my sneaker.  
Before I could make a Mattel joke, she asked, "You're new here?"  
"Just moved out from D.C. this summer."  
"What do your parents do?" Barbie inquired.  
I threw the removed sneaker into my gym bag. "They're federal agents."  
"Oh, really..." Barbie's effervescent quality fizzed a little.  
I took off my other shoe, then peeled off my socks. I worked off my shirt as Barbie continued her interrogation. "Are they still?"  
"Still what?" I asked. I had taken off my shirt and was scouting around my bag for the old t-shirt of my father's I always wore after cheerleader practice.   
"With the government."  
"Yup," I managed to say through the fabric of the t-shirt. I stood back and checked my appearance in the mirror.  
"What's that on your shirt?"  
I turned so Barbie could read the green letters on my black t-shirt. " 'Aliens Make Better Coffee'." she read. Her face was a blank. "I don't get it."  
I changed into my shorts, scooped up my gym bag and said, "See ya."  
  
The problem with Sunnydale was, I had yet to meet anyone with more than two cells worth of a brain. Not that I was being stereotypical or anything, but everyone I had met were either airheaded ditzes like Barbie, or surfer dudes who struggled through Remedial Reading. There just wasn't anyone I could connect with on an intellectual level. Sadly for me, my parents had imbued me with the desire to philosophize everything to death - but not many people my age can sit still long enough to talk about why animal testing could be productive to a certain degree, or whether Zippergate was just some Republican scam.   
Walking along in the corridors, all I saw were faces devoid of character and empty eyes that stared vacantly ahead. I'd never felt so lonely in my life.  
I left the school and entered the sunshiny day outside. Light filled my eyes, and after the dim interior of the gym, it felt as though a sledgehammer had hit me across the face. I closed my eyes momentarily. When I opened them again, I thought I saw a guy gesturing to me out of the corner of my eye.  
I turned quickly. He wasn't a figment of my imagination, I was glad to note. But he wasn't exactly a guy...he was more like, well, a teacher. "Uh-oh," I mumbled. Two weeks into school and I was already in trouble. My parents were going to kill me.  
I never had a reputation for being a goody two-shoes. At my last school, I accidentally burned down the library after my science fair entry on combustion went haywire. It was an accident, but from the way my parents went on about it, it was like I had planned it or something. Ever since that incident, I've pretty much been on probation. One more serious offense, and I'd probably be sent to some Catholic boarding school.  
The teacher walked briskly towards me. He was tall and towered over me. His head was shaped like a potato, with hair, and his eyes stared out a violent, blue-green color. He looked like an older version of a typical nerd, minus glasses. "Ms. Mulder?" he asked.  
"Yeah," I said. I was going to be calm about this.  
"I'd like to speak to you, if you don't mind."  
Major warning bells went off in my head. "Do you have a moment?"  
I tilted my digital watch up to read the time. "Yeah."  
"Wonderful." he said. He really did sound like it was wonderful. "This way, please."  
It's never, ever a good sign when a teacher doesn't want to talk in the open. I walked after him thinking how dead I was going to be. He led me back into the school and to a room I'd always thought was the teacher resource room. It turned out to be a huge library, its shelves crammed with books that looked at least a hundred years old. "Here?" I asked, puzzled. I fingered a book laying on the long, curved checkout counter. "Va..."  
The teacher snatched the book away before I could finish deciphering the fancy script. He held the book to him like it was his baby and I had been trying to feed it glass. I shifted my gym bag to my other shoulder and folded my arms across my chest. It was obvious this teach had some issues. "Ms. Mulder. Would you care to sit down?" He rounded the checkout counter and sat on a stool.  
It's never, ever a good sign when a teacher asks you to sit down. "No, thank you. I'll have to get going soon."  
The teacher studied my face a moment. He was freaking me out. "My name is Winford. Thomas Winford."  
"Are you one of my teachers?" I asked, trying to place him. "Or my counselor?"  
"I..." Winford took a breath. "...am your watcher."  
I cocked my head. "Watcher? Is that some new technical term or something?"  
Winford was shaking his head. "Don't you know who you are?"  
"The last time I looked I was Candy Mulder." I said. Majorly freaking out.  
"You," he stood up and pointed at me. "...are the chosen one."  
"Huh?"  
"You are the vampire slayer."  
  
I must have stood gaping for a long time, because Winford came out from behind the counter and touched my shoulder. "Ms. Mulder?" He looked at me, concerned.  
"I..." I blurted out incoherently. I tried to collect my thoughts. "I... I think you're having some kind of a midlife crisis."  
I started to back out of the library. "That's it. Your wife left you, you're fed up with your life, you wanna join some kind of a dude ranch, and you feel so trapped, you decided to pick on me. Yeah, that's it. Or, better yet, none of this happened. This...never happened. That's the logical explanation."  
Winford shook his head sadly. "Don't shake your head!" I yelled. I was on the verge of hysterics. What was this crazy teacher doing here? What was *I* doing here? Why didn't I just leave? Why was I having a conversation with myself in my head?  
Winford took a step towards me. "I know it must be an extraordinary thought. Vampires, in our very mist. And you, the only one with the strength and skill to be sent here to the Hellmouth."  
"Okay," I said, trying to take charge of the situation. That's what my mother always does in an argument with my father. "Back up a moment. Slowly. First of all, I have no idea what you're talking about. Second. Well, there isn't going to be a second, coz I'm gone."  
I backed up all the way to the library doors and was just about to turn the knob when Winford said, "It's your sacred duty. Why else would you be here?"  
There something about his words that made the most insane sense. Why *was* I here? California was definitely not my scene - and neither was it my parents'. Yet, Sunnydale was the one thing they had agreed on, in years of not agreeing on anything, not even what to name me. It did strike me as a little odd. I considered it momentarily, before plunking my gym bag on the counter and walking to a table. "All right, I'm all ears. Tell me about this slayer stuff. I'll decide whether I believe it or not."  
"The vampire slayer is a special person. There is only one girl in each generation qualified to fulfill the calling. Only the strongest comes to the Hellmouth." Winford produced an worn, leatherbound book that I lazily leafed through as he spoke.  
"The slayer has the strength of her foes, vampires, but it is her sole purpose in life to exterminate them. They are especially abundant here, being as it is the root of all their power."  
I turned the dusty pages, perusing the faded words of other watchers. Spidery sketches of previous slayers adorned the pages. Winford droned on. "Vampires do not work alone. Often or not, they hunt in packs, and have human slaves called familiars, who, if they serve their masters well, can be turned into one of the undead."  
"Why'd anyone wanna die?" I asked. Not that I was buying any of the stuff. My mother's a doctor, my parents work for the government. I don't go for science fiction much. But, somehow, I had to hear the guy out.  
"Ah," Winford replied. "It's no ordinary death. They rise again and live forevermore on the blood of innocent humans. It's a glamourous living, for some."  
Very Jerry Springer. "Yeah, well, this is all really interesting, but I gotta go." I walked back to the counter to get my bag.  
"Candy, why do you think you stayed and listened to me so long?"  
I turned. "Do you always ask open-ended questions?"  
Winford raised an eyebrow, and it looked so much like my mother's favorite expression, it was uncanny. Only my mom does it when she hears one of my father's ridiculous theories about Bigfoot or how the government actually assasinated JFK. It's a look of incredulity, disbelief, a look that over the years has taught me never to take people on their word. My mom may be Catholic, but science is her true religion.   
But the look Winford was giving me was more an amused look than anything else. Kind of like the way my father mimics my mother after he's told her one of his hackneyed ideas and she's dessimated it with the knife of logic. "The last slayer displayed just the same doubts as you."  
"Where's she now?" I asked despite of myself.  
"University. Out of state. She and her watcher both left." Winford reached behind the counter, producing a newer, albeit similar, leatherbound book. He handed it to me, but I was reluctant to take it. "You can read up on her, if you wish. It might make you understand more."  
"This is all some joke, right? No, wait, it's like one of those cases my parents investigated back in D.C. Weird cases, with wackos like you involved. Thanks, but no thanks." I finally left, feeling more or less relieved.  
I ran down the hallway, hoping he wasn't following me. God, what an awful day. I cursed my parents again as I walked home.  
  
My parents were already home by the time I reached our new house. Boxes still littered the first floor, and the house was as yet still sparsely furnished. I climbed over a box labeled 'living room' in my mother's uncommonly neat script (she is a doctor), calling out, "I'm home."  
"We're in here. If you can wade through the clutter." came my mother's voice from the direction of the kitchen. She sounded happy and almost girlish.  
I found her and my father unpacking dinner plates. My father, practically a head taller, was carefully stowing the good into the uppermost cabinets. He turned when I entered, and gave me a paternal smile, his green eyes appearing gray for a second. "Hi, Sam, wanna give your old parents a hand?"  
I grimaced. My parents named me Samara Candace Mulder, after my father's sister, Samantha, who disappeared when my dad was twelve, and the doctor friend of my mother's who delivered me. My mom calls me Samara, my dad calls me Sam, and everyone else since I was six has called me Candy. My teacher had a slight lisp, so when she pronounced my name, it became, "Shamara", and I couldn't stand it, so I asked everyone to call me Candy. It's been that way ever since, except in my house. Which is weird, because when I was born, my parents were torn between naming me Melisse (after my mom's sister Melissa, who died) or Wilhemina, as a tribute to both of my grandfathers, who were named William. How it became Samara Candace, I'll never know, but that's how my parents work. They argue and argue and argue, then they come up with a solution that makes no logical sense whatsoever, but works. See where I'm coming from? Bizzare, weird, freaky household.  
I shrugged, then helped my mother unpack plates. "So, how was school?" my father asked. The obligatory question. They take turns asking it.  
"Fine," was my obligatory answer. "What'd you guys do?"  
My father stopped putting plates away for a second, the exact same time my mother paused slicing through a band of tape on a cardboard box. "Scully?" said my father to my mother. He still calls her by her maiden name, as a form of endearment.  
Mom cleared her throat. "I got a position at Sunnydale General."  
I almost dropped the plate I was holding. "A hospital? You're gonna practice medicine now?"  
"Your father's earned a professorship at UCLA." My mother continued, not noticing my surprise.   
"Paranormal psychology," my father supplied, as if I had asked a question.  
"But...? How...? What about the Bureau?" I sputtered.   
My parents shrugged in unison. "They've closed the X-Files. There's nothing your mother and I can do there anymore. We can't go back into the mainstream." my father answered.  
"Or rather, your father can't." Mom smiled. "Besides, we decided that moving out here, we'd make a fresh start. And that meant giving up the FBI."  
"But, mom, it's the FBI that brought you and dad together in the first place." I pointed out. There was something I didn't like about this. All this change couldn't be good.  
"And it's the FBI that tried to split us apart a million times." my father reminded me.  
I tried a different tack. "The X-Files are your life, dad. Mom's too. What about Aunt Samantha? Don't you want to find her?" I knew I was crossing into dangerous territory, but I couldn't help myself. First the move, now this. I couldn't handle it.  
"The X-Files took my life, Sam. They were a deadly obsession. They almost killed your mother, this marriage. I want to find my sister, but not if it means sacrificing your mother and you in the process." My father's green eyes glittered in anger.  
"Why are you so against this, Samara? We'd thought you'd be happy." My mother's voice, so carefree the moment before, lowered in pain.  
"I..." I looked at their faces, and saw how much they loved me. I knew that when you examined it, they *were* doing it for me. It just didn't feel that way. It felt like they were shirking their responsibility - their duty. "I'm sorry."  
I struggled between the boxes and reached out to hug them. "I'm sorry mom, dad. This move is just taking a toll on me. So many adjustments."  
My mother patted my head. "Don't think we didn't talk this through..." she began.  
"To the death, with you especially, mom." I knew how my mother loved rationalization and logical decision-making. My father smiled at me over mom's head.  
"...yes. And we wouldn't be doing it if it weren't the best way. We think that this will be good for all of us. We'll get to be here for you more often." Mom tilted my head up and kissed my forehead. "Feel better?"  
"Yeah," I replied. Actually, I felt sick to my stomach, thinking about my new responsibility - to rid the world of vampires.  
  
  



	2. Candy Mulder...The Vampire Slayer? (2/4)

  
  
Candy Mulder...The Vampire Slayer? (2/4)  
  
The sun shone brightly through the curtain of rain. A faint rainbow arched in the sky, an inverted smile. Or was it a frown?  
I felt like frowning at that moment. My mother had offered to drive me to school on the way to her first day at Sunnydale General, where she would finally be practicing medicine after years of debunking my father's alien stories in the X-Files division of the FBI. She had an artificial smile plastered on her face. She had acted cheerful all through breakfast, kissing my father's cheek happily when he said good-bye. He was on his way to his first day of teaching paranormal psychology at UCLA. It was the perfect job for my father, whose FBI Academy nickname was 'Spooky'. I knew my mom was proud of my dad for landing such a good job, but it was the first time in all the years they'd been married that they weren't carpooling to work together. Everything was changed.  
Everything had changed over the summer, when my parents packed up and said farewell D.C. and hello Sunnydale, California. Little did they know that Sunnydale happens to sit on a little thing called the Hellmouth - and that's exactly what it is. The mouth of Hell. And I don't mean metaphorically.  
How do I know all this? Well, last Friday, after attempting and failing to pass cheerleading tryouts, a weird teacher named Thomas Winford approached me and told me a little secret. I, Candy Mulder, sixteen, just happen to be the only girl in the whole world with the power to slay vampires on the Hellmouth. I didn't believe it, of course, but he managed somehow to slip a book into my bag that explains it all.  
It wouldn't have been so bad if I hadn't blown up at my parents over their job change, leaving the FBI for medical and teaching careers. But when I did, I got to thinking about duty, and how if all that slayer stuff was true, and I didn't do my job, I'd be shirking my sacred responsibility. And lo and behold, a little book delineating all the specifics ends up in my bag.  
So I sat down and read it through Everything from how vampires feed, to how the Hellmouth has been ground zero for bizzarro happenings since it was first settled way back then, to the most effective spot on the chest to stake a creature of the night. So that when I finished, I was pretty grossed out, bone-tired, and committed to the idea that I was IT.  
Come Monday morning, I dressed all in black and dug up the old gold crucifix my mother gave me for my first communion. The book said it's only effective if the wearer believes in its powers, and while I wasn't the star pupil of my Sunday school class (I flushed the teacher's wig down the toilet), I still believe in God. So I slipped it on and conviced myself it was THE RIGHT THING TO DO.  
"Bye, sweetie," my mother said. She leaned over and kissed my cheek. "Have fun."  
"Ha, ha." I offered. My mother raised her eyebrows, something she usually only does to my father. I wondered if she was worried about me making friends, of which I still had none.  
"I was always afraid the Mulder wit would rub off on you."  
"Believe me, I have enough Scully rationalism to even it out. " I assured her. "Bye, mom. I love you."  
I watched my mother drive off, unknowing. I stalled a few more minutes before retracing my steps on Friday back to the library Winford had taken me to. I peered in the small, diamond-shaped window cut into the door and saw that he was alone. Not bothering to knock, I stormed right in. "All right, I'm in." I announced.  
He was balanced on a stool behind the checkout counter, a musty book opened before him. I reached into my backpack, removed the book he had given to me somehow, and tossed it on the counter. "I'm in," I said again.  
He got off the stool slowly, reaching for the book I had thrown down. "You were always in," he said. He had the faint touch of an accent that I hadn't noticed before. Canadian?  
I followed him through the tall shelves of books. "So, what now?" I asked impatiently.  
He replaced the book, brushing his fingers off on his pants. He was dressed like a geek, reading glasses perched on his nose, shielding his vibrant eyes, pants hiked up to his chest. He didn't seem like the kind of person who could train a slayer. "Well?" I demanded.  
"Well," he echoed. He took off his glasses and cleaned them on his shirt. "Now that you know, you keep a lookout."  
I scratched my head. "Like where? Club Vampire? Vampire Central? Where do these guys go?"  
"Oh, I assure you, they're everywhere. You just have to be ready for them. On that note, when can you come for calisthetics?"  
"Huh?"   
"Your workout. You may have the strength, but I exaggerated when I said you had the skill. That comes with practice. So, when are you available?"  
I sighed. No social life for me. "After school, I guess."  
"Wonderful!" Winford said. He sounded an awful lot like the first time I met him. "Today. After school. Here."  
I sighed again, more audibly this time. "Sure."  
  
I practiced after school everyday for the next three months. Winford wrote my parents saying I'd become a 'library aide', which my father found hilarious, considering I'd burned one down at one point in my life. My mom thought it was great. She'd never say it, but I think she thinks I'm a big flake, sort of like my father. He still surfs the net looking for the latest conspiracy theories and chats on alien abduction sites.  
One evening, after a particularly brutal workout, I thought, "What if there aren't any vampires left to slay?" After all, I'd been here a full three months, and I hadn't seen even one.  
My father saw me zoning off in front of the television set and asked what was wrong. "Daddy... do you think vampires exist?" I didn't feel quite so strange asking my dad. He thinks aliens abducted his sister. I was never really sure about that, and now I'm more uncertain than ever. Three months ago, vampires didn't exist. Now they did, and even more ironically, I was their slayer. Who knows about my aunt?  
My father picked up the remote and began flipping through the channels. "I remember one case your mother and I worked on."  
I sat up, rubbing my sore neck. "We went to this little town, a couple of tourists had died there. It looked like exsaunguination."  
"Looked like it?"  
"And it was. Your mother proved that. Only, by what? I said vampires. Your mother thought more along the lines of a vampire hanger-on."  
"A wannabe?"  
"As she said, someone who had watched 'one too many Bela Lugosi movies'."  
"So what was it, dad?"  
My dad continued to channel surf, but he leaned conspirationally close to me. "Vampires, of course."  
I was glad my father knew.  
  
One Friday afternoon after school, Winford told me I deserved a break. "No workout today. Why don't you go down to that place where all the kids go, the Bronze?"  
"Are you sure?" I asked. I was wearing my father's "Aliens Make Better Coffee" t-shirt and was ready to work up a sweat. "What about the vamps?"  
Winford shook his head as though confused. "I don't understand it. Three months and not a breath of activity. I truly can't conceive why. But, we should count our blessings. Go to the Bronze, enjoy yourself. Watch your back."  
So I changed into trendier clothes and went to the Bronze. They had a live act every Friday, and that Friday it was a local band called "Sanguis-Bound" - a name that made no sense whatsoever, but whose music was adequate.  
I fingered my crucifix as I slurped up a diet cola from the safety of a quiet back table. I observed the people milling around, wondering if some of them were the very demons that I hunted. I saw a lot of people from school, but not signs of demonic activity.  
After Sanguis-Bound's third song, I saw Barbie enter, dressed in skintight pink pants and a halter top to match. She looked like a pink swizzle stick that could strut. She eyed the people seated at the tables, and made directly fo rone just behind me. As she passed, I gave her a small smile, but I shouldn't have bothered.   
I sighed, removed the straw from my drink and tried to catch some drops on my tongue. I laid the straw down on the table, then guzzled down the last of the diet cola. This was even more boring than training, if that was even possible. It might have been fun, if I had had any friends, but the fact was, I didn't. Between my new role as the savior of the world, school and my parents, I hadn't had much time to forge a social life.   
Sighing again, I swung my purse over my shoulder and proceeded to leave. Abruptly, the music stopped. A few people immediately began to complain, and the dancers spread out over the floor stared in confusion at the musicians on stage. I cocked my head, wondering what was happening.  
The lead singer, a slacker-type with orange-spiked hair, way too much lip gloss and an obsession with black, breathed into the microphone, "Ladies and gentlemen."  
Waiting for the microphone feedback to stop, he continued, "I'm sorry, but tonight is the night..."  
His ecpression was something that was cross between a sympathetic smile and a mocking grin. "...that you all..." he took a deep breath. He was enjoying everyone's expectation. "DIE."  
There wasn't an immediate reaction. Some people still stood, waiting for him to say, "Just joking." Others screamed out obscenities. Most were just incredulous. And all this time, the musicians were slowly placing their instruments in their traveling cases. I caught a glimpse of the bass player. His face had turned into something that was definitely not human.  
Then, someone screamed, a long, loud, piercing scream and that was all it took for chaos to erupt. People began to run, pushing and shoving others out of the way. Sanguis-Bound leapt off of the stage in one synchronized, feline movement. All of them has turned into something I had become very familiar with over three months - vampires.  
Thinking quickly, I ran to the emergency exit. Someone had melted the door shut, but that wasn't a problem. I kicked the door open and yelled, "This way, everyone!"  
A flood of people ran towards me, including the lead singer. His mouth was open, his fangs beared. I was scared for only a split second. In that second I was paralyzed, but in the next, I spun out of his way and looked frantically around for a weapon.  
There was an ax on the wall, something to do with fire safety. In that moment, it was more like safety against the forces of evil. I pulled it off the wall and ran back towards the crowd.  
One of them, the keyboardist, noticed me and nudged one of his companions. "Who's she?" he asked.  
I held the ax in front of me. He walked towards me, confident in his strength. I suddenly understood the band name. Sanguis-Bound - blood ties.   
"Stay back," I commanded. I swung the ax at him, but he dodged it.   
"Oh, a little superhero, huh?" He gave me a menacing smile.  
In that instant, I shoved the ax through his chest. He disappeared in a cloud of dust. "I'm no superhero," I said to the rest of them. "I'm Candy Mulder...the vampire slayer."  
The lead singer chuckled. "Great stuff for prime time." he snickered.  
So, all right, my witty repartee needed serious help. At that moment, all that stood between me and three vampires was a flimsy ax. I needed more than help with my rhetoric. I needed a miracle. And I thought the night was going to be a bummer.  
"Uh...en garde!" I shouted. I jumped onto a table for a more dramatic effect.  
One of them came towards me. I spun around and nailed him in the heart with the heel of my boot. He vanished, screaming like someone who'd watched seven hours of Al Gore.  
With my second vampire down, I was gaining more confidence. Maybe this wasn't such a hard job after all. That's when a table came flying at my head.  
"Whumph!" I slid off the table and rolled over to the stage.  
The Bronze was empty save for me and the two remaining goons. "Go on," the lead singer shoved his friend at me. Obviously, he was the head honcho.  
The vampire came towards me, a little shakier than the first two. He lunged for my neck, but I was wearing my crucifix. As he screamed, I pushed the ax through and he vanished.  
The lead singer gave me a wan smile, then ran off and disappeared into the night. Somehow, I knew I hadn't seen the last of him. But I had proved myself that night. I was now officially Candy Mulder, Vampire Slayer.  
Why did I feel like I had had my last night out?   



	3. Candy Mulder...The Vampire Slayer? (3/4)

  
  
Candy Mulder...The Vampire Slayer? (3/4)  
  
"There were ten of them, and they were all HUGE! One of them was four times bigger than me." I spread my arms out to illustrate my point. "And me, without any weapons. All that practice with a stake and mallet - all for nought."  
I was perched on a table, relating the story of my first official slaying to my watcher, Thomas Winford. Winford was paging through one of his thick, dusty volumes, barely listening, but I was so excited, I had to tell someone.  
It was seven at night, and I had just paged my mother at Sunnydale General, telling her where I was. My father was with her, asking her opinion on a article on a stigmatic he had found in the morning newspaper. My father may teach paranormal psychology at UCLA, but that does nothing to explain his obsession with the strange and downright weird. My mother claims he's been a little "out there" from the first day she met him. They worked together for years, investigating unsolved cases, with my mother rationalizing my father's craziness all the way.  
Well, that night, I was the one who was "out there". I was on a weird kind of high from slaying my first batch of vampires. It was a morbid joy, and I couldn't really explain it. Fortunately, I didn't have to. My parents had no idea that I, their teenaged daughter, Samara Candace Mulder, was the one girl in the world strong enough to slay the worst vampires of all - those on the Hellmouth. My dad believed in vampires, but I don't think he'd go for my being the slayer, so he was in the dark about it. And my watcher? Well, my watcher, my scholar/trainer, was looking kind of worried, which just killed the moment.  
"Candy," he began slowly. "...exactly how many vampires did you say there were?"  
"Ten."  
Winford's eyebrows knitted. In the three months I had known him, eyebrow-knitting had come to denote displeasure. "Okay, so maybe less." I admitted, still refusing to stand down. Let me have my glory.  
"How many?"  
"Less than ten." I offered.  
"How many, Candy?"  
His eyebrows were practically fused into one long caterpillar. I knew when I was had. "Four," I finally relented. "Four, okay? The drummer, the keyboardist, the guitarist and the lead singer."  
I counted the number off on my fingers as Winford got up and began to pace. "And you say the one that got away had orange-spiked hair?"  
"Horn melon material," I clarified. "That's what I said."  
He stopped pacing and came back to the table. He flipped open the volume to a blurred page of writing and illustration. "Did he look like that?" Winford jabbed the page with his forefinger.  
I leaned forward and examined the scribble. "Um...yeah."  
Winford gave an audible sigh, under which I heard a swear word, although with his unidetifiable accent, it was hard to make out. "Those four," he continued jabbing at the page. "are known...correct me, *were* known, as the 'Fearsome Quartet.'"  
I cocked my head. "Sounds like a better name than 'Sanguis-Bound'." Which was the name the wily vamps had used when they were posing as a local rock band playing at the Bronze, Sunnydale's hang-out joint.  
"So, okay, I slayed some real legends. So what? Do I win a trip to Hawaii or something?" I joked.  
Winford's eyebrows knitted. "Maybe more along the lines of Hoboken, huh?" I said, more subdued this time.  
"Try the gates of Hell." Winford informed me. He turned the page to a full-color drawing of a really evil-looking vamp with all sorts of majorly bad symbols painted in red on his face and neck. I spotted anarchy and a pentagram. Not good.  
"This is Raphael." he said.  
"The teenage mutant ninja turtle?" I tried. Winford almost snorted.  
Winford began to lecture. "He's almost one-hundred and seventy-four years old. One of the oldest living vampires on record. And one of the evilest." Winford began to pace again as he spoke. "He disappeared from the watcher diaries during the nineteen-sixties, and most assumed he was dead. He fought one slayer in the early nineteen-hundreds, and killed her."  
I bit my lip. This Raphael guy didn't sound good. "It was a rather gruesome death, as well. However, he fought a second slayer in the sixties, about the time he disappeared. The slayer vanished as well, but most assumed they had killed each other."  
"Where are you getting at with this?"  
Winford stopped his pacing. "Raphael amassed many loyal followers, and he was a very good master. He took care of his people." Winford came back to the book and turned it back to the Silly Four. "The Fearsome Quartet were his men."  
I didn't like the direction this conversation was going. The last bubble of happiness over my first successful slaying popped. "If the Fearsome Quartet were bold enough to hold an entire nightclub hostage, it seems that Raphael is not dead. So in all likelihood, he will come after you. And, by his record, he is sure to kill you."  
Major problem. I slowly slid off the table. I suddenly wanted to go back three months and be the miserable, but ignorant, Candy Mulder whose biggest concern was fitting in and making California friends. Now, not only did I literally have the fate of the world in my hands, but I was most probably going to die. Horribly.   
I looked at the drawing of Raphael again. He seemed to be leering at me. "Should I skip town or something?" I asked. I felt a chill go down my spine at the thought of this guy coming after me. I wanted my mommy.  
Winford shook his head. "He'll hunt you out, and that will make it all the more fun for him. He enjoys torturing those he kills. I'm quite sure that the slayer from the nineteen-sixties met with a particularly awful fate."  
"This isn't doing much to assure me, Winford." I complained.   
Winford shook his head even more violently. "There's nothing to do but take the utmost care. Watch your back. I think it's safe to say that he will act swiftly, try to catch you off guard. That seems to be his modus operandi. He snatched the first slayer as she was slaying one of his men and wasn't looking."  
I nodded to show that I understood. I found my purse and prepared to leave. "Candy," Winford called just as I was opening the door. "I know you're worried, but don't be quite so much. You *are* the best slayer in the world, or else you wouldn't be here. Congratulations on a job well done."  
Smiling, I saluted him and went home, praying a vampire wasn't waiting to twist my thumbs loose.  
  
I managed to get home in one piece, but from the moment I approached the porch, I knew something was wrong. The door was ajar and all the lights were on. My mother, the conservationist, would have never allowed it, and my father, the ever-paranoid, wouldn't have stood for the door being open for more than a second. I raced up the walk and burst in.  
"Mom?" I yelled. I ran up the stairs to the second floor. "Dad?"  
My parents' room was dark, so I flipped on the light. Nothing was out of order, the bed neatly made, my mother's hospital corners intact, my father's copy of the latest JFK conspiracy theory on the nightstand with his neon-colored bookmark in place. I wondered briefly why the FBI had ever admitted my father as I left to explore the rest of the floor. My own room, which was adjacent to theirs, was also in perfect order. I sprinted back downstairs, calling my parents. I was becoming more and more frantic.  
I went into the kitchen, expecting them to be cooking dinner, my father joking that the spaghetti looked like the insides of a body my mother once autopsied. But the kitchen was empty and silent, save for the banging of the screen door.   
I walked towards the sound, then saw that the back door had been forced open. I wheeled around, and there it was. Stuck with a knife into one of the cabinet doors was a note reading, "If you want to see your parents alive, Slayer, come to the Bronze tonight. Raphael."  
The note was written in blood. I had no idea's who, but I prayed that it wasn't one of my parent's. I ripped the note from the cabinet and left through the back door. I had to get to Winford. I needed his help. Any lingering joy at my first slaying was completely erased. The only thought left in my mind was how I was going to kill this Raphael. This guy had gotten personal. He'd gotten my folks.  
He was dead meat.  
  
  
  



	4. Candy Mulder...The Vampire Slayer? (4/4)

Candy Mulder...The Vampire Slayer? (4/4)  
  
My watcher, Thomas Winford, groaned softly. He snatched the piece of paper from my hands and examined its message thoroughly. He was shaking his head so hard, I was sure it was going to fall off.  
The piece of a paper was a note that a certain evil vampire by the name of Raphael had left speared to the door of one of my kitchen cabinets. He'd abducted my parents a few hours after I slayed three of his goons, the majority of a group calling themselves the 'Fearsome Quartet'. Cheesier than an afterschool special I know, but he took it personally. He kidnapped my parents just an hour or two after the last fiend got away, to inform him, I guess.  
My job as the vampire slayer wasn't turning out to be much of a picnic. I had had no idea what I was really getting in to when three months ago, Winford, who's sort of my technical support-cum-physical trainer, approached me and kindly told me about my sacred duty. Slaying vampires. On the Hellmouth. Which, when added together, equal REALLY TOUGH JOB.  
Just my luck that I'd get this type of responsibility. My uncle once told me the Mulders are cursed. Of course, my uncle Bill doesn't approve of my father much anyway, so what good could he possibly allocate to his family? Uncle Bill claims that the Mulders attract trouble, and that once my mom got involved with my dad, it cursed her as well. And Uncle Bill claims not to be superstitious. I wonder what he'd say to my being the slayer?  
I thought about this as Winford paced and swore. I was leaning against a shelf stacked full of musty volumes. Winford's library was meticulously catalogued, but most of his books needed a thorough cleaning. Anyhow, I was thinking about my Uncle Bill's rather low opinion of my father because I was trying to avoid thinking about daddy. Mom, too, for that matter. I was trying not to think about the fact that the note Winford was reading was written in blood. I was trying very hard not to think about the fact that Raphael had killed two slayers this century. I ws trying very, very hard not to think about having to save my parents. That's because I was not too sure I could do it.  
My father, who labored for years investigating elusive cases called the X-Files for the FBI, has a sort of 'Let's get it on' attitude that was essential for his field of expertise. My mom on the other hand has the kind of attitude that can only be characterized as 'Look before you leap' - which was why she was assigned, at first, to debunk my father's work. So you can see my dilemma.  
One side of me wanted to rush headlong into the situation. Run all the way to the Bronze, where my parents were being held, pin that sleazoid Raphael against a wall and claw his eyes out with my crucifix. That was my father talking, Fox Mulder on full combat mode.  
Then there was the other side of me, telling me to take it calmly, logically. That side of me wanted to hear what Winford had to say. It wanted me to think about all possible consequences to come up with the perfect plan of attack. That was mom, Dr. Dana Scully-Mulder, rationalism to the extreme.  
What was I to do? I was confused, tired and above all, scared. I wanted my mother to step out from behind one of the musty shelves and tell me it was all some practical joke. Or better yet, give me one her lengthy lectures punctuated with the words "There is absolutely no scientific evidence to prove..." and her trademark eyebrow raise.  
I began to pace, following my watcher up and down the aisles made by the shelves of books. We would've looked pretty ridiculous, except that there was no one to see us and we both had sad, twisted expressions on our faces.  
Abruptly, Winford stopped and I walked smack into his back. "This can't be good." he said, rubbing his chin thoughtfully.   
Like, no duh. "Like, no duh, Winford." I replied, feeling exasperated. All that pacing and he came up with *that*? Since when is a bloodthirsty vampire kidnapping your folks a *good* thing? I began my pacing anew, Winford giving up to collapse on a chair.  
He finally sighed and said, "There's no way to avoid it, Candy. You have to be the one to save your parents."  
Uh-oh. "I...I have to do it?" I stopped walking and stood staring at my watcher.  
"You are, of course, the perfect choice. Raphael *is* a vampire - albeit a cruel, crafty one, but a vampire, nonetheless. It's your duty."  
"But, but..." I stuttered. I rang my hands. "Can't we just call the cops or something? Or better yet, the feds. My folks were in the FBI, remember."  
Winford began his marathon head-shaking again. "What would we tell them?" That shut me up.  
What *would* we tell them? My father spent most of his life screaming at the top of lungs (not literally) for someone to believe in his crazy theories. Where had that gotten him? No, Winford was right. This was my job, my responsibility. I bit my lip and asked, "Got any stakes?"  
  
The Bronze was dark and deserted when I arrived loaded down with a tote bag filled with vials of holy  
water, sharpened stakes, a mallet and garlands of garlic. Winford had elected to stay behind in his VW Beetle - the 'get-away' car according to him. If you ask me, he was just too cowardly to come inside. Or maybe not. Maybe he knew me better than I did myself. And how much I needed to do this on my own.  
I took a deep breath and adjusted the strap of the tote bag. Who ever thought that vampire-slaying implements could be so heavy?  
As I walked towards it, the door to the Bronze swung open with an eerie creak. That gave me one big chill, but I swallowed hard and kept going. My father never walked into a room scared. The best piece of advice my father ever gave me was when I was six years old and too scared to climb into a tree to retrieve a stranded kite. I made it halfway up, but paused, paralyzed with fright, on a limb holding on for dear life, tears streaming down my cheeks. "I can't. Daddy, I can't." I sobbed. Why didn't he just come up and rescue me?  
My father just stood there. He had his arms crossed across his chest, and a slight smile on his face. It was a sunny weekend in the middle of September, and the park where we were at was crowded with screaming kids and tired-looking parents. But I was oblivious to everything but the fact that I was going to fall off and break my neck. "Daddy!" I hollered. It felt like I was slipping. I wrapped my arms more tightly around the limb, although the bark scratched.  
My father's gentle voice spoke to me in soothing tones. "Sam, it's all right." I could hear him coming closer. Looking up, I saw the red and yellow kite just inches away from my face.  
"Look, Sam." My father still spoke calmly, softly. "You see the kite, don't you? Your goal is in sight. Reach out, Sam, reach out and grab it. Believe in yourself."  
I didn't do it right away, but I did it, finally. I shimmied up the tree, pulled the kite out and managed to get back down. That was my father's best advice - "Believe in yourself."  
I certainly needed to heed his words now. I took a deep breath and kicked the door open wider, for  
good measure. "Come out, come out where ever you are!"  
The door banged shut behind me. "Samara?" someone's voice called out uncertainly.  
It was my mother. "Mom? Dad? Where are you?" I ran towards the sound of her voice.  
I heard footsteps approaching me. Suddenly, he was there. The vampire from my watcher's book, minus the blood-red symbols he had decorated himself with.  
"Hello, little girl." he said, in a mock-gentle voice. He walked towards me, making a heavy, ominous sound with his thick boots. "Come to get your mommy and daddy?"  
He snapped his fingers and my struggling parents were brought in by a henchman. My mother was collected, but obviously angered by this unprovoked attack. She kept trying to brush the vampire off. My father was trying to punch the henchman, but the goon was keeping him at arm's length. I turned to Raphael. "Let them go. You don't want them."  
He smiled, a secret, scary smile that made me think of the two slayers he had killed. Winford had spared me the details, but I knew, just by looking at him, that he had made their deaths as prolonged and painful as possible. The way he was looking at me at that moment, I also knew that he was thinking that three was a charm.  
"You're frightened, aren't you?" he asked, as if he had read my mind.  
I focused on my parents, who were strangely quiet, watching our exchange. "Let them go,"I said again. "Or else."  
He laughed, a creepy sound that echoed faintly of nails across a blackboard and the thunk of a heavy body falling down the stairs. "You're the youngest slayer I've ever met, did you know that? The last one I knew... she was twenty-four. What are you, twelve?"  
He was toying with me, trying to throw me off my guard. I started towards my parents, but the henchman hissed. My mother tried to pull away and he grabbed her back like a treasured rag doll. "What's happening?" my mother screamed. She hated being out of control.  
"I SAID, let them go. NOW." I tried to sound like I was majorly confident, although my hands were shaking and I couldn't feel the lower part of my body.  
"Sam, what's all this about?" my father asked.  
He eyed the preternatural thug.  
"Mom, dad, I want you to trust me." I looked at Raphael out of the corner of my eye. He was standly patiently, waiting to see what sort of plan I was hatching.  
I swung the tote bag around in front, slowly unzipped it and reached inside. "Now!" I yelled.  
My father reacted quickly. He pulled my mother towards me as I tossed a wreath of garlic around the buffoon's neck. He roared in anger and pain, then staggered off into the darkness. Raphael was looking at me, a humrous glint in his eye. I knew that garlic was useless against a vampire as strong as he was. He needed to be staked - and now.  
"Mom, dad, go outside. My wat...uh, my teacher has his car outside. Get in and tell him to take you home." I ordered them. I was rooting throught the tote bag with one hand. Raphael was advancing slowly, the sly cat approaching the mouse.  
"Samara, what's going on?" My mother placed her hand on my arm, suddenly the concerned mother/doctor.  
I looked up. Raphael was still coming towards us. It's almost funny, except that I know the kind of psycho Raphael is. There's a century's worth of literature on his bloody exploits. "Go, now, please! Dad!" I turned pleadingly toward my father.  
Understanding was on his face. He took my mother's hand and left with, "Take care of yourself, Sam."  
I planned to do just that. I finally located the freshly-sharpened stake and the mallet. It was in the nick of time too, because Raphael was hissing down my neck. I held up the stake. "Back off, mister."  
He grinned, showing his pointed teeth. "You watch too much television," he chided. "You know how there's too  
much violence on tv?"  
He stepped towards me. "You're about to experience that firsthand."  
He lunged at me and for the briefest second, I was scared. But I remembered my father's words. I flung myself out of the way and staked him in the back. He exploded in a cloud of dust and was gone. I hadn't even gotten to use my mallet. Or exchanged any witty rejoinders.  
I collected my things and left the Bronze, shutting the door behind me gently. I was prepared to walk home, but Winford was still parked outside, with my parents in the back seat. "What are you still doing here?" I asked Winford. "You were supposed to take my folks home."  
My mother got out of the car and hugged me. "Honey, I know I can't even begin to explain... that. But I'm glad you're safe."  
I looked at my father over her shoulder. He gave me a conspirational wink, and I knew that after this, I didn't have to worry about fitting in. If I could kill a vampire that had been menacing the world for over a century, how hard could making friends be? "Let's go home. I think this slayer stuff is okay," I added to Winford. He smiled at me as I realized how corny this all was.  
But I didn't really mind.  
  
THE END  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  



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